


All the times there weren't

by mungosity (ishery)



Series: Postmodern sentimentality [1]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Kisses, eventually other things, rated for future, written from a prompt on tumblr
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-19 15:40:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5972605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ishery/pseuds/mungosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Basorexia - An overwhelming desire to kiss. "</p>
<p>Smaller vignettes of each of the times that Nick and Audrey might have kissed, if they'd have gotten past their hangups sooner. </p>
<p>Eventually including the first time they did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Like a kick in the head

The first time, it was like a switch had flipped somewhere in his head (If he thought on that for too long he might’ve convinced himself it actually  _ had _ ) _.  _ Years he’d been up and about the commonwealth with not even the slightest indication toward anything romantic-- he had the memories,sure, knew how it all worked and how much his old self had  _ relished _ in every single moment he got, but… he hadn’t expected that the institute had gone so far as to actually program it all into his circuit boards somewhere.   
  
Of course, there was also the chance they _hadn’t_ and he was just faulty in all sorts of new ways.   
  
Wasn’t exactly like they’d left him with a user's manual.    
  
They’d been in the middle of diamond city, when the whole of it hit him square in the chest and made him stop mid sentence. Audrey had been travelling with him almost non-stop since springing him from that damn vault, and he’d almost forgotten how nice it was to travel with someone again. She was a breath of fresh air to a world weary soul.    
  
Somehow, in their endless line of conversation they’d traipsed onto the topic of the park they sat in now, and the way things had been before. They laughed over inside jokes that he’d been fairly certain he was the only one who knew the punchline to- mused over the fates of several of the less grandiose ball parks, and he’d watched the way tears formed in the corners of her eyes from laughing at Moe Cronin’s  _ historically accurate _ retelling of the sport, much to the shopkeeper's ire.    
  
“ _ That’s  _ what they think? Honestly?” She continued chuckling to herself (and him, he supposed) as they made their way back toward the office.   
  
Casting his eyes to her as he laughed as well, it _ hit him _ . The relief that after all this time  _ someone  _ remembered it all as crystal clear as he did. Thought it was all ridiculous and wasn’t ashamed to say so (bless the ghouls but after enough years he began to think they just  _ encouraged _ the stories) and he just couldn’t believe how  _ nice _ that was. Or how desperately he wanted to thank her for making him feel like that again...   
  
“-- Nick?”    
  
Her voice drifted back in after a moment, filtering over a constant stream images flashing like slideshows through his conscious, moments with women long past and images of what he most definitely should  _ not _ be wanting now...and he blinks, breath forced out of his nose as he clears it all away. A bracing gesture that wasn’t entirely needed, but was effective enough to calm the way his mind  _ wanted _ his body to react, to push that barrier of their friendship and seal her lips to his even if only just for a moment--   
  
_ No.  _   
  
“Thought I lost you there,” she speaks gently whether or not she realizes it, like she's  still not sure she hasn't lost him, but the curve of her lips matches it perfectly.  So perfectly that he has to tear his eyes away from her smile, bending fingers in toward his palm to resist reaching out and closing the distance between them, a nonchalant shrug programmed into his wires and joints coming off effectively despite the tumult his brain might’ve been in. “Are you okay?” 

Thank god for independent processors. 

  
“Ah, forget sometimes you’re not as used to that as Ellie. Easy to mistake ‘lost in thought’ for ‘please call technical support’ with this mug.” He smiles back at her, an action easier to him than anything else at the moment, “Usually sort myself out after a minute, don’t you worry.”    
  
The way she looks at him, smiling and warm even if only a few seconds away from chastising him over ‘being so hard on himself’ is almost enough to make him wish he could.    
  



	2. The things we do (AKA: Snowfall)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so Valentine's Day chapter had to happen- even if I wasn't sure what I wanted to write. Thankfully, the weather provided and it's snowed like 6 inches today so-- there we go. Snow in the commonwealth has to be a thing at least once in a while, right? RIGHT? 
> 
> Eh, I'm making it a thing for this at least.

Winter was something she had hardly expected of the wasteland.They spoke of nuclear winter like it was a thing that would come and never end but in the months that she had been in the commonwealth she had seen nothing of the sort. No snow, no gradual slide of seasons that the old world had her so accustomed to… 

By the time nick found her that morning, the snow had collected around where she sat, blanket wrapped around her shoulders and feet dangling off the side of the roof, arms crossed upon the railing in front of her. 

"Figures I'd find you up here," he chuckled as servos whirred to facilitate the action, divided between motoring the more sparkling aspects of his personality and keeping vital systems warm. 

Snow had collected around her in inches, and he could see the way her shoulders shook from the temperatures, but the beaming smile that is given toward him as she taps the ground next to her could melt the whole of the commonwealth. He is hopeless to resist, and finds himself mimicking her position in spite of better judgement. 

The things Nick Valentine did for his girl, apparently. 

"I've never seen it look like this," her words were awestruck, reverent and quiet in the stillness of the morning. "Before the war...sure, but now-"

He understood what she meant. The mornings like this were calm; a feeling hard to recreate in the tumultuous world that they had woken to. "Sure isn't anything like it used to be, is it?" 

Dark eyes swept to meet his, fingers extending to wrap around chilled metal and claim it as her own despite the lack of gloves. Not many would be so adventurous even on the warmest of days. "In the ways that matter, it is."

They sat like that for what felt like ages, watching the snow fall around them and listening to little else other than the sound of her breaths and the various clicks and whirrs of Nick's systems. A companionable silence that spoke volumes more than they ever would aloud. 

When the snow finally over encumbered the bridge of his hat however, she was quick to chuckle at him, watching as he brushed the collected tufts from his coat and shifted in place. 

Audrey echoed the movement as time kicked into gear once more by the amusement of the moment and she pulled the blankets tighter around her shoulders even as Nick watched her with a careful gaze. "You're shaking." 

She tried to ignore the concern in his tone, or the way that she watched his fingers stutter in their abortive motion to pull her feeble wrappings tighter in around her. "Come on," he finally said as he rose to his feet, hand reaching to help her. "Let's get you inside."

Protest quieted by the chill in her bones, she left her perch behind, rising to her feet and releasing a breath into the air. "It's a shame we couldn't just... keep it like this." 

Busying himself with removing his coat and wrapping it around her shaking shoulders, Nick made a humming noise in response to her musing, "Too many guns about for that, sweetheart." 

He watched as she scanned the horizon again, releasing another sigh, "You're right..." 

"Hey now," and metal fingers moved to tug his coat back over her shoulders and pull it tight, arms moving to wrap her close against him as well, "doesn't mean we stop trying. Already done a damn fine job so far." 

They stood like that for another several moments as he felt her arms wrap around his waist, head moving to lean on his chest as she stubbornly continued to watch the snowfall- and he, sap he was, let her. She'd end up sick, a small part of his conscious reminded him, shaking in the cold simply because she couldn't say no to glimpses of the commonwealth calmer than it had ever been and would likely ever be. Except in moments like this, few and far between. 

No, instead he ducks his head, pressing metal lips to her forehead and feels her hum beneath him, because if he was being completely honest.... he wasn't ready to lose that peace either.


	3. The song doesn't matter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Requested on tumblr, a small thing about dancing. And, an actual kiss!
> 
> There will be another update soon, but I'm in a bit of a lull internet wise so things are in a bit of flux. Good for writing the words, not for adding them to things.

“Did you dance often, before the war?”

She never referred to him as the other nick, or acknowledged that the body he inhabits now was not the same body that he would’ve gone dancing with. And instead, she smiles up at him as genuine as can be, and waits for an answer that he’s almost certain she already knows.

“Not as much as you might think,” he echoed back to her, metal fingertips dragging over fabric at the small of her back, encouraging her closer and allowing them both to focus on the music just a bit more.

For a few moments they are quiet, and she hums the tune on the radio behind them as though she’d learned every word– it wasn’t hard to these days, with Travis’ limited catalog of music. “So,” he restrains the urge to sigh just a little at the way she picks their conversation back up where it paused, “You’re telling me that there weren’t policeman things to keep you socialized enough, balls and galas and all that sort of thing?”

Nick chuckles, “ now i didn’t say there weren’t any of those– just didn’t often go to them.”

“Too busy hunting down kittens in trees?”

“Something like that. ”

He enjoys the way she laughs at that, warm and quiet as though it was meant to be a secret shared between the two of them. “Now you’ve never said if you did, and I think I’m due a little quid pro quo here.”

“Oooh using that full latin vocabulary of yours are we?”

“Simply saying it in a language the court would understand. Have to take it easy on you courthouse types.”

She chuckles again, shaking her head as they turn in the course of the music, shifting primarily in place to the audio provided and paying little mind to what the actual tempo might have been. It didn’t matter. What had started off as a moment’s joke had continued far past that and neither found themselves willing to break the contact, to end a moment that was far more than they could usually get in the wasteland. A quiet moment in a safe space where it didn’t matter what happened outside (or behind) their door.

“Well, if you must know,” she rolls her eyes even as she speaks the words, a false haughtiness carrying in her tone, “There were veteran’s balls, and a few little charity things with the firm but honestly? Lukas hated dancing.”

“Two left feet?”

“You’d have thought he had four. My poor toes…”

A quiet moment passes between them as the music pauses and they stop the slow sway that had been their only actual attempt at dancing since the idea first popped into her head. Eyes meet, and he mirrors that small smile that lingers on her lips, "well, hopefully I can make a better dance partner than that, at the very least.”

“Hard to say, there’ll have to be auditions of course, other than this…” she seems to ponder this for a moment, a false gesture made obvious by the spark in her eyes, “but I think you’ll do. For now.” 

When his fingers dipped under her chin and pulled her lips to his, it was with a promise to make the most of whatever time she wanted to give him. She didn’t hear him, but it didn’t matter.

**Author's Note:**

> These are going to be random at best, showing up when I feel like I have another good one to share-- it's not the only thing I'm working on with Nick and Audrey either and I can't wait to share it all with you!
> 
> Please review if you liked, and if you're so inclined feel free to find me (visit with me, give me prompts, let me love you) at tumblr, url ( ludomungo.tumblr.com ).


End file.
